


a soul that's born in cold and rain (knows sunlight)

by dee_thequeenbee



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/F, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Historical References, Hurt/Comfort, Love From OQ | Outlaw Queen Secret Admirer (Once Upon a Time), Memory Loss, Multi, World War II
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-15 20:35:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29442000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dee_thequeenbee/pseuds/dee_thequeenbee
Summary: a doq/ww2 tale - when regina goes missing, robin thinks he lost her in the war. until a letter reaches him: she's alive, but she lost all memories of him. and she may have fallen in love with someone else...
Relationships: Evil Queen | Regina Mills/Maleficent/Robin Hood, Evil Queen | Regina Mills/Robin Hood
Comments: 19
Kudos: 10
Collections: Love From OQ





	1. oh, and these colors fade for you only

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gray_autumn_sky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gray_autumn_sky/gifts).



> for Tara, my Valentine!   
> i hope you'll like this story. you requested a period piece and i chose to set this one immediately after the war. i did my best to make it believable and to avoid any historical error or inaccuracy, but still, i apologize if you'll find some mistakes!   
> also, i didn't manage to complete the story to my liking before the deadline, so you get the first part, and i'll work to post the rest as soon as possible - in the meantime if there's something you'd like to see, tell me and i'll do my best to add it. 
> 
> i'll just write down the two songs that have inspired my writing: "alice's theme", by danny elfman; and "take me home", by jess glynne. the title is a line from hozier's "sunlight". 
> 
> enjoy your gift! Xx

_;_

_forwarded to Lieutenant-Colonel Robin Locksley – MI6 Intelligence Corps, via J. Little_

_(Robin, I think you’ll find this one interesting. I know you said we shouldn’t  
send you mail from civilians, but this you’ll like – trust me. John)_

_November 8 th, 1945_

_Dear Mister Locksley,_

_You don’t know me, but let me introduce myself. My name is Mallory Grace and I represent a charity organization linked to the Red Cross: our job is to help the Allies’ troops as best as we can, in any way we can. I’ll be happy to explain what I do with more accuracy, later on, and how I managed to find your address; but I need to go straight to the point: six months ago we found a woman near the border between France and Germany, just after the war ended._

_She had the symbols of the Reich on her nurse uniform, but she was wandering around, disoriented and wounded. We still took her in, despite believing her an enemy. She’s been in a delirious state for days, fallen prey to infection, and when she woke up she had no memory of her past. As she knew how to speak in German and American English we considered it wise to keep her there under surveillance – and as she was still recovering, we delayed the moment when we’d have to deliver her to the camps for Prisoners of War._

_I am writing to inquire if you can help us trace her identity: the only reason we can think of for her presence there – apart from being, of course, a real enemy – is her being a spy for the British or the Americans. So, with high hopes, I enclose her photograph. I completely understand if you cannot identify her, but we had to try: we wouldn’t want to sentence an American citizen to the faith of those who lost the war._

_If you need further detail, don’t hesitate to contact me._

_With regards,_

Mallory Grace 

_Saint Mary’s Institute, British Red Cross_   
_Joint War Organization_

.

.

Robin is frozen, staring down at his desk, where the letter and a photograph are staring at him.   
The letter is almost crumpled – his hand smothers it a little, but his eyes are drawn towards the face on the photograph. A face he knows all too well.

His wife.

His wife, whom he thought dead or lost: he hasn’t seen her since months already, he believed she was gone, he had almost started to make his peace with it. But here she is, Regina, her face as beautiful as he remembers, and his throat tightens. He traces back the name on the letter – Mallory Grace, it says.

He thinks he’s going to be sick.

He’ll write back to this Mallory, he’ll tell her everything – that Regina is part of the MI6 – and of this incredible coincidence that led Miss Grace to reach him, at first by writing to the attention of the officers who collaborate directly with the Red Cross. Then the letter reached his friend John, who kindly let Mallory know that if there was someone who could identify a lost person, it was Robin… and how ironic that the lost person had to be his wife, who volunteered months ago to go to Germany and infiltrate between the enemies’ ranks.

He wasn’t happy about it, of course. But Regina has always made it clear that she wasn’t going to be a trophy wife, that she was as equal and necessary to the war as he was – and she’s probably a better spy than he is. So he’s watched her go with a heavy heart and the subtle feeling that it wasn’t going to go well.

He rereads the letter, again and again, her eyes piercing through him like an arrow – he flips the picture over. Takes a pen and writes to Mallory, to John, to his superior officer John Prince and to the officer who’s in charge of the place where Regina is: a country house turned hospital, in Devon.

Then, he sets off, heading home. He has a train to catch.

.

_November 10 th, 1945_

_Dear Mister Locksley,_

_I cannot express my joy when I received your letter – what a fortuitous coincidence! I have already spoken to my colleagues here, and I am pleased to tell you we can indeed host you for a fortnight. I’ll be so glad to see you reunite with your wife. I must confess I find myself at loss whenever I think about how should I break the news to Regina. Would it be wise to let her see you so abruptly without a warning? Or should I gently ease her into the notion, and risk an unpredictable reaction?_

_I’ll be glad to fill you in about her health and everything you want to know as soon as you’ll arrive – in fact, I will come at the station in person, to accompany you to the house._

_My best regards,  
_

Mallory Grace

.

Mal is hiding something from her.

Regina just knows – during the months she spent in this place, she has come to know the woman who saved her life quite well, if she can say so. And Mal is a terrible liar – she knows, because she has been trained to spot a liar when she sees one. Or, at least, at some point someone has to have trained her, because – guess it’s muscle memory, or something like that, but still, she’s able to be confident when she says Mal is hiding something.

Her thoughts are rambling again.

She dresses up in the morning and slowly limps downstairs to get some breakfast. Her wound, the deepest and most painful one, still hasn’t healed completely, so she is forced to use crutches. Annoying, she told Mal, but bearable, because she can’t wait to be able to ride again – that’s something she hasn’t forgotten, how to ride horses, and it’s just her luck that the Blanchards still happen to own a couple of horses. It’s the most frail and old ones, of course, she wonders why, maybe they’ve sold the others – after all, it’s taking all of Mary Margaret’s financial skill to bring this place up and about after the Great Depression and the war. She’s heard talks of turning the residence into a museum, or a real hospital, or a school for orphaned children, or a war memorial.

She drags her body onwards through the corridors, pausing for a moment to look at Leopold Blanchard’s portrait – _old creep_ , she thinks, even though she’d never tell Mary that, even more so now that her father is dead because of a disease that lasted months.

God, she’s so glad he’s gone: Mal has told her things about him, things that make her happy that he managed to pass away before she could meet him. Speaking of Mal, where is she going again? Today, it was today, Mal told her she wasn’t going to be at the breakfast table because she was going somewhere… she forgot where. Oh, right, the train station. To meet someone. Someone important?

But that was hours ago, she thinks, she woke up late this morning, maybe Mal is back already and maybe she can spot her car in the distance. She decides against breakfast, chooses to walk towards the windows that face the large expanse of grass in front of the house, and the well-used pathway leading to the entrance door. There’s a couple of abandoned military trucks, because the soldiers who are staying here are long-stay patients… like me, she thinks. I’m a long-stay patient. She rolls her psychiatric-ward bracelet around her wrist as she stares out the window – there’s no car in sight, but she just needs to wait a little more and the car will come, she knows it.

She has a feeling this someone Mal is bringing home is going to be important.

.

There’s no recognition on Regina’s face when she first sees her husband. Mal’s heart cracks a little bit when her eyes shift from her confused gaze to his face, absolutely devastated. She sees how he’d like to reach his wife and hug her, the relief mixing with the sheer adoration she hasn’t seldom seen. But Regina politely smiles and says, “Hello. I don’t believe we have been introduced.”

He gulps, at a loss for words for a moment, then tells her, “Yes, hello. My name is Robin Locksley, I… I am part of the Army, I am here to discuss urgent matters with Miss Mallory.”

She takes his extended hand and shakes it, “I’m Regina Mills, nice to meet you.”

Robin looks as if he’s about to say something, but he stops, looks at Mal. She feels compelled to… explain, “Regina was found with no memories and with half her ID tag missing. So we don’t know if that is her real surname – at least, it’s the one surname she remembers.”

“Oh,” he nods. “I understand. Well, it has been a pleasure, Miss Regina. I hope I’ll have the chance of seeing you again before I leave.”

She nods, smiles, and gives him a strange look, her head slightly tilted to the side. Then, she turns towards Mal, smiling, telling her she’ll see her later.

“Of course,” Mal says, absentmindedly. She turns to Mister Locksley, who’s watching Regina walk away with a kind of pain she has seen on war widows’ faces. “Follow me to my office, if you please,” she asks. “We have a lot to discuss.”

.

His conversation with Mal is long and insightful, but also painful. He witness first-hand what she’s tried to explain in her letters. She tells him her tag was half-missing, but it was a tag from the Reich anyway, and she’s probably given them a fake surname. (And he can’t hold himself from confirming that yes, she remembers the correct name – at least, her maiden name).   
Miss Grace fills him in about her health – her leg is slowly healing, but it’s the bullet wound that has taken most of her energy away. She was lucky to get immediate care, at the hands of a kind doctor who didn’t care that she technically was an enemy. Mallory doesn’t have an explanation about the memory loss – it could be related to a coping mechanism, to god knows what. But they agree on one thing: they need to tell her.

They need to sit her down and tell her that Robin is her husband, that she was a spy, that they found her in France. Mallory hasn’t told her the truth yet, the doctors advised her against it, because Regina needed to focus on healing. But now it’s time – well, not now, but after some days. Robin will stay for a fortnight, after all: they agree on telling her after something like a week, and in the meanwhile he’ll try to get and know her, to see if something will prompt her memory to return. And then, after the second week – a week spent getting to know him but this time knowing that he’s her husband, she’ll be cleared out of the residence, ready to travel back to London.

Or at least, he hopes.

.

She runs.

Listens to everything they say, petrified on her chair in Mal’s office, then she runs.

Or, at least, she would run if she could – but her stupid leg and her stupid cane don’t let her run, more like they let her limp away quickly, and Mal and Robin let her go, they don’t try to follow – at least there’s that.

She finds her favorite spot, sits on a blanket under the willow tree next to the lake, it’s not far from the house and Mal used to push her wheelchair here during the first days of her permanence. She’d keep her company or just leave her be, coming back to take her inside after a little while. She misses those times: they were simpler times, when her mind was like a blank slate waiting to be written.

Now there are all these memories, waiting to resurface, and she is not sure she even wants to remember. If what they’re saying is true – and why shouldn’t it be, she has seen the hurt on Robin’s face these past few days, he’s not that good at concealing it – or maybe he is, it’s just that she knows him, used to know him so well that his littlest shift of expression is oddly familiar… if what they’re saying is true then she is a, god, a _spy_ , and a good one nonetheless, and she is _married_ , and she has lost years of memories.

And there’s Mal.

Mal’s gentle touches during these past few months. Mal gifting her books, when her headaches have started to transition from blinding flashes of pain to dull pools of annoyance. Mal always finding a moment for her even in the flurry of activity that is being responsible for all these patients and war veterans.

Mal, that she has almost kissed a month ago.

_Fuck_.

And she _likes_ Robin. She’s known him for years and yet for just a week, she sees clearly how she could be married to him – there’s this banter they have, and he’s easygoing, serious when he needs to be, and he has taken to help people in the residence, while at the same time he’d work on – oh _god_ – on his job for the MI6, even though he must be on some sort of leave. For her. Because she’s his wife.

And it’s all horribly unfair, she thinks, sinking her hand in the grass. She would like to remember, she just doesn’t. Her memories stop roughly around the time when she was twenty, five years before the war, and start again from the moment when she has seen Mal for the first time when she woke up in the hospital.

She rolls her white bracelet around her wrist – _Regina Mills_ , it says in an elegant handwriting, at least that one isn’t a lie, Robin told her, even though she took his name after marrying him but stayed Mills for her colleagues in the Army and in the MI6.

A sudden noise startles her – it’s him, it’s Robin, and he’s taking off his hat as he nears the tree.

“Hi,” he says, hesitant. “May I join you?”

She looks at him for a moment. He seems hopeful, but also hopeless, as if he knows that this is beyond his control. They’ve dropped a bomb on her, and now they’re left to deal with the consequences. She nods.

As he sits next to her, on her blanket, and goes to lean his back against the willow, she looks down at her hands. “Did Mal send you to give me a pep talk?”

He laughs, but shakes his head. “Not at all. She is worried. We know this isn’t easy for you.”

“You can say that,” she mutters bitterly. “I mean, I don’t know what’s worse, honestly. Not having half a lifetime’s memories, or finding out your wife isn’t dead after all – but she doesn’t remember you.”

“I won’t lie – it is painful,” he murmurs. “I am glad you’re alive, of course. I am luckier than most. But it feels like a cruel twist of fate, you know?”

She nods, wordlessly, because who needs words? He’s said everything there was to say to describe their predicament. She picks at the grass, wishes there were flowers, so she’d make a daisy crown. But it’s November and the chill is filtering through her bones, and they’ll need to get inside soon.

“Tell me about me,” she says abruptly. “Some details, the first ones you can think of.”

Robin nods, and it feels like he’s choosing his words carefully. “You were born in 1914, in New York. Your favorite color is burgundy on good days, and a deep blue on bad days. You always put two sugar cubes in your tea but your drink your coffee black. We met in 1935, and married after two years…”

She hears the pain in his voice, sees the way his voice cracks.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “You don’t have to do this, I shouldn’t have asked…”

“It’s only natural,” he says, without looking at her. “Can I… hold your hand, Regina?”

She nods, lets him intertwine their fingers on her lap. She spies the wedding ring there – who knows what happened to hers, she thinks, she’ll have to ask him one day. Holding her hand seems to ground him, as they keep staring ahead towards the pond. He sighs deeply, but she doesn’t know what to say that can make it better.

.

“We need to talk, Regina.”

She stops abruptly in the hallway, sees Mal behind her. She looks almost… pained, as if she has to tell her something. Regina nods, and follows her into her office – a room that’s become so familiar during these past few months. Mal gestures for her to sit, and then takes her place on her chair.

“We need to talk about that night. You know which one.”

Of course she does – the night they almost kissed. How could she forget – she could never forget. “Mal, I… I shouldn’t have, I’m sorry about it.”

“But I’m not,” Mal says, her eyes widening, and she extends one hand above her desk. Regina takes her hand, their fingers weaving together. “I don’t regret a single thing when it comes to you.”

She nods, feeling the familiar sting of tears starting to burn past her eyelids. “I’m going to miss you so much.”

“I know, darling. I’m going to miss you too,” Mal answers, and maybe her eyes are glistening too, maybe she’s not the only one who has an absolutely crushed heart. “It is cruel, what happened to you. And your husband is a good person, you know.”

“I do,” she cries, now, the guilt threatens to swallow her whole. She blinks, and a few tears splash on her camisole. She’s still holding Mal’s hand when she asks, “promise me you’ll come visit.”

Mal looks uncertain, and Regina knows what she’s thinking – that a clean cut is better than the on-and-off alternative – she’s heard her say it one day to a wounded soldier, about his broken bone. A clean cut.

“Mal, I don’t _want_ a clean cut. You can’t ask this of me – you’re the only connection I have to… to the only moments when I felt normal, since you found me.”

She sees her eyes closing, and Mal taking a deep breath before she answers.

“I’ll see what I can do, Regina.”


	2. the Icarus to your certainty

_December 1 st, 1945_

Their house is beautiful.

Robin has never cared much for appearances – but as he looks at the house with Regina by his side, and Regina has never – in her mind – seen it before, it starts to look pretty fantastic to him. Her eyes are wide as she gently places her suitcase on the ground, she’s taken aback in the very same way she was when they first saw it.

He’s hesitant – he doesn’t know how to act around her, especially now that they’re home, he’s afraid he’ll scare her somehow. After all, he’s almost a complete stranger, still. If this were _his_ Regina, the one who remembers him, he’d probably sweep her up and carry her beyond the threshold amidst her fervent protests; but this isn’t his Regina.

“Do you like it?”

She nods, wordlessly, takes a few step ahead. Robin retrieves her suitcase together with his own, and follows her through the gate. She waits, almost impatiently, for him to open the door, and she goes in first. Seeing her in the entrance hall is another stab to his heart, because if he closes his eyes and believes in magic strong enough, this could be just a normal day.

“I very much like it,” she whispers. There’s some sort of awkward moment, where they both stand silent in the hallway. “Will you, uh… can you show me around?”

Every time he thinks his heart can’t possibly break some more, it’s the moment it happens.

“Of course,” he murmurs. “I’ll give you a tour.”

He leads her into the kitchen, into the sitting room, shows her the bathroom and the toilet, and the two bedrooms, tells her, “I told our superiors that we didn’t need so much space but they insisted, and, uh, I guess now that comes in handy… and you… could…”

“…stay in the guest room?” she guesses, a smirk that is so painfully familiar curving the corner of her lips. “But wouldn’t you miss me?”

She must realize what she said the moment she says it, because she’s clearly horrified by his pained expression.

“Robin, I’m…”

“No, you’re right,” he tries to smile, to school his features. “I do miss you, when I sleep alone in that bed.” She tries a tentative smile, and he reaches for her hand, to reassure her. “You don’t have to tiptoe around my feelings all the time, darling. I know this is hard enough, without you having to be careful about your words.”

“I know, I just…” she sighs, and shakes her head. “I think I’ll go freshen up now, if you don’t mind. I’m getting a little tired after all the traveling.”

“Of course,” he says. “I’ll… go fix us something to eat.”

He leaves her there, with a stack of clean towels and clothes, and goes downstairs. The weight of their situation leans on him, on his shoulders, but as he starts to make them dinner and hears Regina in the bathroom upstairs, he lets himself pretend that nothing ever happened and it’s all right in the world.

.

_January 8 th, 1946_

_My darling Mallory,_

_I was so pleased to receive your last letter! Phone calls are still wonderful because they give me the chance to hear your voice, but I find letters more satisfying because I can keep them. You asked me about my life in London – I am certain my tales won’t be half as interesting as yours, how could I compare my life with your adventures in Switzerland?_

_Anyway, Robin and I are both fine, he keeps going into work every day, and every morning he looks at me as if he fears he’ll never see me again. It breaks my heart, but he suffered a great deal when he thought I was dead. I try to be of help – I try all the time, but I think it’s not enough. My leg is almost healed, and don’t worry, I still go into the hospital for check-ups once a week. Soon I won’t need my cane anymore._

_We spent an uneventful Christmas, just us and a couple of our neighbors, and Robin’s friend John and his wife. He gifted me a photo album, and – Mal, I look at those pictures, I stare at them so intensely I fear I might crack my eyes, but I don’t remember. I have visions, sometimes, like flashes, when I’ll think_ This I know, this I’ve seen already _. Robin tries to fill me in, he’ll drop details and trivia about our life, and sometimes I finish his sentences with the right answers – the memories are there, I just can’t access them._

_I’ll have to go into work soon – our superior wants to meet me, to see how I am faring, and to be frank I’m quite nervous about it. Some of Robin’s colleagues have been called to join the Nuremberg trials: I don’t think they’ll testify, but they’ll help, so they can turn things in the right direction. I am aware that, had I kept my memories intact, I could have gone there as well. I wish I could go._

_Please keep writing, my darling – I can’t wait to see you._

_All my love,_  
Regina

.

_February 28 th, 1946 _

_Dear Mallory,_

_Thank you for your letter – I read Regina the most funny bits, the lord knows we need a bit of fun in our life now that the worst is over._

_I have been talking to Regina about seeing someone: I am told that there’s this American psychiatrist who has done a lot of research on the front lines and helped soldiers and veterans after the war ended. She is hesitant about it, and she is getting better, truth be told – but she wakes up at night, Mal, she has nightmares, and it worries me. I hope we’ll get to see you soon. I’m sorry I don’t have more encouraging news, but I don’t want to lie or withhold the truth from you, it wouldn’t be fair._

_Affectionately,_  
Robin

.

_March 5 th, 1946 _

“You know, we could go to the movies tonight.”

“But it feels so much comfier here on our sofa, Robin.”

He laughs, looks at her – his eyes are glinting with a mirth she has never seen, or at least she doesn’t recall seeing.

“You know, forgot I said anything. I’m perfectly content with sitting here next to you.”

“Of course you are,” she shakes her head, and – goes to lean against his shoulder. This is new… the intimacy they’ve been building, ever so slowly, it’s beautiful and everything she could have hoped for. He told her he doesn’t want to rush, that he will wait for as long as she needs.

They touch – more often than not he holds her hand in the street, stroking the back of her hand with his thumb. She likes to trace his skin with her fingers, when they sit in the dark – and he kisses her forehead, so often it’s become an habit of sorts… before leaving for work, and when he comes back, or just when he gets up from the table to answer the phone.

She’s gotten used to his touch – addicted, at this point, and she knows he doesn’t want to push her, but this has to be difficult for him. To have his wife sleep in another bed without being able to hold her at night – he always comes to see her when she has a nightmare, always, alerted by her scream or her crying, and he’s such a light sleeper that sometimes she finds him already there before she even has the chance to wake up.

He’s lightened up a couple of candles, tonight. _Your candles_ , he told her with a smirk, _you liked to use them when you took a bath upstairs_ – and there it is, a flash of a memory, herself floating away, relaxing in the bathtub after a long day. And that time she had to dry herself quickly and run outside in her bathrobe, holding his hand, and they’d disappeared inside the air-raid shelter because the sound of a siren was impossible to ignore…

“Where did you go just now, darling?” he asks her.

“Back in time,” she says. “War memory.”

“Germany?”

“Not yet, no. Before that.”

He smiles, and even though she imagines it is weird to smile about your wife telling you she remembers the war, she can’t fault him for doing so. They’re coming back, her memories, what was clouded in fog gets clearer and clearer, and he doesn’t rush her. Never, even when she asks questions for hours, trying to make some sense of the tangled mess she has inside. She pours onto photo albums, and sometimes she’s so focused on her past that he comes home and finds her with a headache brewing.

He’s so kind, and she’s falling in love with him. And yet – the guilt consumes her, and no matter how much she’d like to do so, she never let herself kiss him until now, never let herself forego her guest room to move back into the master bedroom with him. And if it frustrates him, he doesn’t show it.

The thing is, she still thinks of Mal, so often that it scares her, and it gets so confusing, because her love for her husband is _there_ , just… buried under layers of trauma, a frozen seed slowly thawing, and her love for Mal is… she doesn’t even know – a small bloom of a flower and she’d like to see it grow, but she doesn’t know if she – if she ever liked women before. She doesn’t know how to approach the subject – what if he thinks she’s weird, what if he reports her or makes a call to a psychiatric ward…

“Regina.”

Her head whips to the side so fast she almost gets hurt. “What?” Her voice sounds guilty, so scared, goddammit, she didn’t mean to spiral like that.

His eyes are so impossibly blue, she feels like he’s able to spy in her soul. “Tell me what’s wrong, love.”

Her heartbeat is so fast now – she tries to calm down, squeezes his fingers. “I’m alright. Sorry.” A deep breath, calm down, she tells herself. “I’m alright.”

“You look scared.”

A scoff exits her mouth before she can manage to stop it, and she shakes her head. “I’m fine, I promise. Actually, a bit tired. Do you mind if I go – ”

“I’d mind, yes,” he smiles gently. “You can tell me anything, you know.”

Her head tilts to the side, considering, thinking. Can she trust him? Can she trust the love he had for _his_ Regina, this woman she’s starting to feel closer every day but who still feels further than she’s ever been? Can she trust that he’ll love the idea and the memory of her _enough_ to accept this secret?

She only sees kindness in his eyes, and that’s what makes her decide.

“Do you know if – um, have I ever told you… do you know, if I ever… liked… a woman?”

.

_March 16 th, 1946 _

_Regina, my dearest,_

_I was so happy to receive your latest. I finally have some good news for you both – it appears France doesn’t need me anymore, so I’ve been given a period of freedom and I can finally come to see you. It fills me of joy – it’s been months since we last saw each other, and while I immensely enjoy our phone calls, it’s just not the same. I have been busy with managing and organizing the journey home, so this will be – most likely – a short letter. I do hope this piece of information will be a joy for you to receive._

_I am so looking forward to our next encounter._

_With all my fondness,_  
Mal

_._


End file.
